Jazz reviews and comment from one man with an unfeasibly large record collection.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

I Get The Message

Don't worry guys, I've got the message. I was just looking at my traffic, and once again I see that the hits per day have dropped by about 50% after posting about Weather Report. I won't do it again, I promise.

7 comments:

It may be from what is seen now as a rather trendy sell-out and commercially popular combo who gave up playing real Jazz when they started filling stadiums - and they killed Jaco Pastorius too - but when it came out I Sing The Body Electric was a-right-out-of-left-field-sonic-attack-convoy.

I stuck it on the other day after Mr Craig reminded me of it, and you know what(?), it still is all those things. I think that other than the work of Pinski Zoo this represents Jazz's travel along the logical course that Miles' late 60's outfits described [now there's a contentious view eh?] - a direction Miles himself abandoned in favour of... ah-hem.... other pursuits.

No need to say sorry to me Mr Craig, just keep on doing what you're doing. (Maybe best not to mention those Grover Washington Jnr and Kenny G albums you've been think about doing though, eh?)

(yeah just like Diz killed Bird…) Funny, I just also went back and revisited this and all early WR discs and have to say they demand several listenings to begin to really hear what is being said. The rarest of talents and innovative spirit. Check out the new box set "Forecast Tomorrow", it features 3 cds but the crown jewel is a DVD of a show in 77' in Germany at the RockPalast with the quartet of Zawinul, Shorter, jaco & Erskine. The quality is very good, the set list amazing and the playing? As papa J put it…

I'm always glad to see something thoughtful about Weather Report. Speaking of which, has anybody here seen the clips of a first line-up of Weather Report, with the addition of John Surman on bass clarinet and Alan Skidmore on tenor (and with Skidmore soloing, no less) on Youtube? Anybody know where that came from? I'd love to get my hands on some of that ...

There's something kind of establishment about them though. I can't imagine getting excited about a previously unreleased album of theirs the way I would, say, if it was Herbie Hancock, or some obscure Peruvian jazz-funk combo.